Quick and easy tomato pizza

Quick and easy tomato pizza: Sometimes we just don’t have the time or inclination to create something exotic or crowd-pleasing and so it’s a good idea to keep a few things around the kitchen for when you just can’t be bothered!

Ready-made pastries are in abundance and Pillsbury’s do a nice range of pastries from croissants to cookies, from biscuits to pizza bases. We are constantly thinking of new ways to use familiar foods and so a trip to prowl the local supermarket, yielded a few go-to items. One of which was Pillsbury’s thin-crust pizza dough. This is not something that we would be looking for while shopping in Italy, so we thought we would put it through it’s paces.

These pastries are just brilliant and perfect for teaching the kids how to rustle up a meal of their own.

We decided on a quick mixed tomato pizza with spinach, fresh mozzarella pearls and basil. Our tomatoes are both red and green and were gathered at The Farm at Rockledge Gardens. They are wonderful. So, without further ado, here’s our recipe:

Ingredients: Serves 2 – 4

1 Pillsbury’s thin-crust pizza dough

1 green and 1 red tomato of equal size

Cooked spinach (we had some in the fridge but you can quickly cook some up)

6 oz fresh mozzarella (we used mozzarella pearls by Bel Gioioso because we were planning to use them for this recipe and they sounded so pretty!)

6 – 10 large leaves fresh basil

Salt and pepper

Extra virgin olive oil (of course we used our own Tenute Carcasole)

Prepare the pizza base as instructed and preheat the oven as instructed on the packaging. In this case 425F/220C. Use your fingers to press it to ensure a thinner pizza crust is the result.

Drizzle the pizza base with a little olive oil and brush it in.

Spread the spinach over the pizza base leaving up to 1 inch (2 cm) around the edges, clear.

Top the spinach with the slices of tomato, basil and mozzarella.

Drizzle with more olive oil and sprinkle all over with a pinch of salt and pepper.

Place in the centre of the oven for up to 10 minutes until the pizza is golden brown and the mozzarella has melted.